Seattle Transit Blog

Discussions about density, transit, biking, and pedestrians generally center on two issues: the implications for low-income people and environmental impact. Lest we forget the enormous public health implications of these policies, The Economist has some encouraging figures ($): London’s authorities calculate that if every Londoner switched to walking for trips under 2km, and to cycling for trips of […]

And with a quick snip from the @kcexec, the new bike/ped bridge @UW is open! pic.twitter.com/VFZWdvx4OB — Sound Transit (@SoundTransit) July 22, 2015 Sound Transit photo of the opening of the pedestrian/bike bridge over Montlake, first featured in the Seattle Bike Blog Link Light Rail service remains something to look forward to in 2016. However, […]

Kiwanis Club volunteers no longer providing shuttles to Puyallup Fair; alternatives remain. A mathematically rigorous example of how adding a road can increase congestion and travel times. Metro exploring “alternative services” for Vashon Island, looking for residents to participate. Yesler Terrace construction moving along ($), will increase the number of units by almost nine times. […]

The Tulalip Tribes, in cooperation with WSDOT, the FHWA, Snohomish County and the City of Marysville, is currently rebuilding the 116th Street NE interchange on I-5, one of the two primary access points for the reservation’s outlet mall and casino complex. The current interchange, built in 1971 and handling traffic far beyond its capacity, also […]

At a Tuesday morning press conference from the last timber-supported bridge in Seattle – a 500′ long structure that carries Fairview Ave E into South Lake Union – Mayor Murray formally kicked off the Move Seattle campaign effort. Flanked by a diverse coalition of interests including Transportation Choices Coalition, Puget Sound Sage, the Downtown Seattle Association, and […]

If you live in Seattle, I strongly encourage you to show up and listen or comment at tonight’s city council hearing on the Housing Affordability and Livability Committee’s recommendations, which have come under attack from single-family protectionists. Tonight’s public hearing will help the council decide which of the 65 recommendations to set in motion. It will take turnout, […]

King County is considering adding more water taxi routes. Last week, the County Council’s TrEE Committee (Transportation, Economy and Environment) reviewed an interim report looking into expansion of the service. The interim report screened 36 potential routes serving 17 terminal locations on Lake Washington and the King County shore of Puget Sound. Just three of these met criteria […]

King Street Station’s much needed $55m restoration did much to heal the decades of architectural and functional neglect that had turned the 1906 landmark into a 60s-era eyesore. The expansive waiting room is now beautiful and grandiose in an austere sort of way, the white and beige palette imposing a coldness nicely balanced by the warmth of […]

Mark Professor loves the London bus system, and his Oyster Card. (Thanks for finding this, Andrew!)

It is almost time for the State Fair. The Fair runs Friday, September 11 through Sunday, September 25. Sounder service will once again be limited to the second and third Saturdays of the Fair (September 19 and 26), and will feature two round-trips from Everett each of those days, with longer trains due to high […]

Many years ago, when I had more free time than money, a friend and I mused about a scheme to charge people commuting across the 520 bridge $20 to sit in their car from Redmond to Montlake in the afternoon. This way they’d get access to the HOV 3+ lane, and we’d make some cash […]

by LISA HERBOLD Seattle Transit Blog editor Martin H. Duke misrepresented my position when he wrote on Saturday: Council Candidate Lisa Herbold argues that flexibility in single­-family zones will threaten displacement from affordable single-family homes. Click through to the article in the link above, and you will see that my position relates not to opposing “flexibility,” but to […]

SDOT seeking comment on more restrictions for ship canal bridge openings. Scott Bonjukian writes at length on Kitsap’s Transit high-speed foot ferries. WSDOT tackling mudslide issues on the North Sounder route. Hurrah! Seattle Police step up enforcement of bus lanes. UW may crown U-District station with a 240-foot tower. Only 0.1% of eligible Seattle residents have received a […]

The miscellaneous route restructures for King County Metro proposed for March 2016, transmitted from the King County Executive Dow Constantine to the County Council last week, included some good news for South King County Commuters: Per Executive Constantine: Metro is proposing service additions to peak period service on two routes in the I-5 South Corridor: […]

The King County Council will soon consider the restructure proposal that Metro submitted last week to take effect in March. They’ve set up an online form for public testimony on these changes. Our sources tell us that the initial comments from this tool, not widely publicized, are running heavily against any changes. Most STB readers likely understand some basic […]

Monday, September 7 is Labor Day. King County Metro, Link Light Rail, Sound Transit Express, the Tacoma Link Streetcar, the South Lake Union Streetcar, the West Seattle Water Taxi, Pierce Transit, Community Transit local buses, Intercity Transit, and Everett Transit will be running on their Sunday schedules. Sounder, the Tacoma Link streetcar, the Vashon Water […]

Amid the general hand-wringing about growth in Seattle lately – be it from Danny Westneat, Crosscut, or innumerable KUOW radio hours – there has been no shortage of discussion about the relative lack of transit service in South Lake Union. A combination of fewer transit options, abundant parking, and an affluent workforce have yielded a drive-alone rate […]

As supply-and-demand skeptics are fond of pointing out, real estate is not an undifferentiated commodity, but in fact is a variety of products tailored to a wide range of tastes and requirements. One of the more difficult customers to serve under current urban market conditions is large households, in the most conventional case families with multiple children. […]

Image via Division Ave blog. Last week, after residents in his new council district protested a new live-work development in Ballard, city council member Mike O’Brien took the unusual step of slipping a new design review mandate into an otherwise standard-issue omnibus cleanup bill. The change O’Brien made would require design review–a process that can […]

If all goes well, by 4:30pm today we’ll know what will be considered for an ST3 package. The Board will be deliberating the Priority Projects List that, if approved, would direct ST staff to study each project for cost, ridership, etc for inclusion in the System Plan and the eventual ballot measure. Like a cut […]

By Jay Arnold Later this afternoon, the Sound Transit Board will begin to define the ST3 package by determining their priority project list (PPL). As the project list gets narrowed, Sound Transit board members have an opportunity to be responsive to feedback from open houses and community outreach, provide meaningful transportation options for areas of dramatic growth, […]

Late yesterday afternoon, Metro transmitted to the King County Council a proposed ordinance including a final U-Link restructure proposal, along with a few other changes also scheduled for March 2016. Executive Constantine issued a press release summarizing the proposed changes. UPDATE: Councilmember Larry Phillips has introduced the changes as two separate ordinances. 2015-0350 covers the changes […]

The Sound Transit Board is poised to finalize the ST3 Priority Project List (PPL) on Thursday. When creating a ballot measure in 2016, the Board will draw from the PPL, and only from the PPL. While alignment and station details are not final at this stage, the importance of this list is obvious. The Seattle Transit Blog […]

Today we wrap up our roundup of institutional comment on ST3 projects by looking at Pierce County cities. Many Pierce County cities within Sound Transit’s taxing district did not submit letters, including Bonney Lake, DuPont, Ruston, Fircrest, Steilacoom, Milton, Edgewood, and believe it or not, Tacoma. ST did receive letters from Fife, Lakewood, Orting, Puyallup, Sumner, and University […]

In the institutional comment on Sound Transit 3 (ST3) from King County cities north of Lake Washington, the “522 Transit Now” coalition effectively rallied cities, the legislative delegation, King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski, universities, and private citizens around three requirements: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on SR 523 (N 145th St.) to connect the cities of Shoreline, […]

In the ST3 project list comments, Edmonds, Everett, Mountlake Terrace, Snohomish County, and Community Transit all sent their input. Here the key headlines: Everyone Wants the Spine. All the letters cited extending light rail to Everett as a top priority, and both Lynnwood and Everett expressed a preference for service to the 55,000 jobs at Paine […]

Video is about renewing infrastructure and rolling stock but don’t forget about the operating plan.

Everett Transit, the aunt-who-moved-to-Florida-before-you-were-born member of the Seattle Transit family has it’s fall service change tomorrow, August 23rd. I’ve only used ET about a dozen times so cannot comment much on the particulars, but I would like to praise the underlying philosophy of the changes. Unproductive tails, trips and routes are being cut with the hours […]

Over the weekend Mike Lindblom had an in depth piece discussing East Link’s need for an additional $20m for engineering the I-90 bridge section of East Link, the world’s first floating bridge featuring rail transit. The contract with Parsons Brinckerhoff will be expanded – from $36M to $56M – to solve the final 8 (of […]

Seattle’s transit infrastructure is years behind what it should be to accommodate current ridership, let alone the thousand or more human beings sinking roots in our city every month. The Move Seattle levy, assuming voters approve it in November, will be a good step forward – but we’ll still be playing catch-up. What if Seattle […]

From commenter colorfast in What the Eastside wants from ST3: Parochialism will smother ST3 in the crib. The notion of restricting expenditures to within arbitrary geographic or jurisdictional boundaries that are invisible to real travel patterns is absurd. ST3 investments need to prioritize serving corridors where the highest travel demand exists today and in the future; […]

Several Eastside cities (Bellevue, Redmond, Issaquah, Kirkland, Renton, Sammamish) submitted a joint interest statement to Sound Transit that lays out a shared vision for the ST3 project list. Each city also submitted comments with respect to their particular interests. The joint interest statement was developed in response to concerns that the draft PPL would serve the […]

Just four days after a slow-news-day Saturday rant about Amtrak Cascades’ illegible timetables, the timetables have been fixed. Amtrak Cascades’ Twitter account sent out the update Wednesday afternoon. They’re still not perfect, as the inclusion of the Empire Builder is useless for trips along the Cascade corridor, and the tables are still very difficult to read […]

Today the first 5 of Metro’s 174 new trolley buses hit the streets. From here on, Metro will steadily roll out 110 of the 40′ coaches, while the 64 articulated 60-foot trolleys are anticipated to start rolling next year. All in all, the entire legacy fleet will be replaced within the next two years. Metro’s spokesperson […]

Sound Transit is hoping to revamp their Ticket Vending Machine (TVM) design prior to ULink opening. To test a few new UI concepts for the machines, Sound Transit is offering $15 Starbucks cards to riders willing to go to ST headquarters during business hours next Tuesday, August 25th. If you are a regular transit rider […]

SEATTLE SUBWAY Martin recently pointed out that having strong local constituents who care about transit is critically important to getting the most out of Sound Transit investments. We strongly agree. That is why we were encouraged by the Seattle Department of Transportation’s (SDOT) recommendations for the next Sound Transit ballot measure (ST3). The SDOT recommendations […]

Two weeks ago Martin wrote at length – and then our readers commented at a far greater length – about Seattle’s ST3 input, featuring a new alignment proposal that attempted to knit together Downtown, SLU, LQA, and Ballard. As Martin noted at the time, the way the Federal Way alignment process played out reiterated how […]

Today, after a year of work, Houston just revamped its bus network overnight, bringing better service to more people than ever before. Free rides for the first week so people can try it out. I like that off-peak service will be the same every day of the week. It gives a sense of dependability and […]

For over a year now, Amtrak Cascades schedules have been incorrectly printed on their website, reading backwards in the southbound direction, both on mobile and on desktop platforms. While tech mistakes happen and are eminently forgivable, not having processes in place to quickly fix crucial pieces of information – such as a basic timetable – is inexcusable. […]

Sound Transit staff have long suggested by example prior to adoption of the Link line naming system that Central Link will be named the Red Line and East Link be named the Blue Line. Those “example” names became official in June when ST announced new and improved signage to be unveiled systemwide when U-Link opens […]

On Monday we looked at travel times on Link’s ‘Red Line’, the central spine that will run between Lynnwood and Des Moines (or possibly Federal Way) in 2023. We made a few observations along the way, including the relative benefit to Snohomish County compared to South King, about the gifts of Link to the Rainier Valley, […]

Sunday’s open thread had a video about a new light rail line in Toronto, and people took the opportunity to have a little fun with Sound Transit’s expansion plans. The Toronto line is straight, compact, and has dense station spacing, and the Everett-Tacoma-Redmond spine is none of those things. Seattle doesn’t have Toronto’s transit potential in […]

While on a visit to the future Roosevelt station site recently, STB tipper Leslie B. heard that one of Sound Transit’s tunnel boring machines (Brenda) hadn’t moved in a few weeks. We reached out to Sound Transit, and Kimberly Reason told STB that the problem was a large boulder: Brenda (TBM #1) has stopped mining since […]

The Rainier Valley will be bustling this weekend with two fantastic and family-friendly events. The annual Rainier Valley Heritage Parade, on Saturday from 12:00-4:30pm, will offer food, live music, street sports, a beer garden, a pie eating contest, a police picnic, B!kecitement in front of Bike Works, an afterhours movie in Columbia Park, and more. Take […]

Martin and I took some time to record a podcast this week. Topics include: SDOT’s preferred alignment for Ballard (3:10) Generally terrible land use patterns and how they affect transit (13:00) How to build affordable market-rate family housing in Brooklyn (27:30) LRT vs BRT for West Seattle (30:15) Moving from incremental ST measures to a single […]

Among the projects that Sound Transit has suggested for the Eastside are I-405 Bus Rapid Transit and Light Rail between Totem Lake and Issaquah. While light rail is a clear priority, Eastside cities are interested in BRT on the Eastside Rail Corridor (ERC) as an interim solution. So there are several proposals in play that could serve […]

In 2023, Link Light Rail’s Red Line will travel from Lynnwood to either Highline College or Federal Way Transit Center, depending on funding. Lots of digital ink has been spilled about things like long endpoint travel times, armchair quarterbacking the time savings that might be achieved from buses leaving the tunnel, with no real clarity on […]

Toronto is building a crosstown LRT line. Current bus ridership in the corridor is over 78,000 daily. The 10-kilometer, 12-station, underground portion is about the same distance from the Ballard Locks to Children’s Hospital.

Two weeks ago the Times had an interesting article ($) about a grassroots attempt to introduce a carbon tax in Washington State, Initiative 732: They’re wrangling signatures for Initiative 732, which would put a new tax on carbon burned in gasoline, natural gas and other fossil fuels — while cutting other taxes by an equal amount. By raising […]